Big Day Out
Flemington Racecourse
January 26, 2009

I haven’t been to a Big Day Out in quite a while. The last time was back when it took months to scrape together enough pocket change earned on a sub-minimum teenage wage just to buy the ticket, and when timetables were studied forensically – the day planned meticulously weeks in advance. Deciding which of your idols to sacrifice in the inevitable event of a time-slot clash would be the toughest decision of the year.

This year was different. Having spent less time worshipping the once-sacred Triple J, a lot of the side acts were kinda foreign. And with a little more cash in the bank, there was less desire to wring every last drop of value from the ticket, running around madly trying to catch the maximum acts.

This year, I gave myself time to wander, to relax and enjoy. And in the interest of a holistic review, I made a point of venturing beyond the main stages I had once welded myself to.

My first lap of the grounds took me past local rockers Children Collide and Birds of Tokyo. Both acts pulled a fairly solid crowd considering the early slot, and seemed to benefit from being Melbourne acts playing in Melbourne to Australians on Australia day. A double-pang of patriotism.

And boy were the patriots out in force. Aussie hats, stickers, boob tubes, thongs, inflatable paraphernalia, tattoos (temporary and permanent) and, of course, flag capes, were standard fare on this sunny day of national celebration. But despite the faintly off-putting whiff of Cronulla, the bogans mostly seemed harmless.

After getting the lay of the land, I settled in the boiler room for local hip hop troupe, TZU. These guys were a lot of fun – and perfectly placed to amp the fledging dance crowd – delivering a highly energetic performance that had feet shuffling and hands thrust firmly in the air. Slotting in a ‘Sexual Healing’ breakdown mid-song towards the end of the set went down wonderfully, too.

Back out in the sun, Little Red was busy impressing a more subdued crowd gathered at one of the side stages. The turnout wasn’t huge, but the lads didn’t seem to mind. The ever-smiling five-piece bopped and doo-whopped their way through hits from the debut album and also sprinkled in a few newbies, which sounded very promising.

The Ting Tings was the first international act I caught. The British two-piece wasn’t super-polished – the commercial hype overshadowed the fact that they were nothing more than a drummer and a pretty girl who could sorta play the guitar and work an effects loop thingy – but they played the hits people wanted to hear, and got the way-too-big-for-a-side-stage crowd jumping and singing along. The big finale, ‘That’s not my name’, threw the crowd into a frenzy.

Mid-way through the set a loser in a sparkly blue mullet wig climbed atop a sound tent in front of the stage, thrusting a protruding tent pole and pouring sunscreen all over his face. It wasn’t funny until people started hurling bottles at him, and he started swiping at the incoming objects like a slower, lamer King Kong. Once a bottle eventually connected with his face, he climbed down into the arms of security.

Next up, one of the festival highlights: Black Kids. The band’s Floridian accents and upbeat indie pop combined with the heat and young, brightly dressed audience to make you feel like you were part of one of those TV-famed teen US beach parties. The band seemed genuinely happy and appreciative to be performing in a far-off land, again heightened the fun-factor. ‘I’m not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you’ had the crowd screaming along in absolute bliss, and was one of the most enjoyable moments of the day.

After swinging by a shonky hot dog place (the grimy red meat and stale bread came from the bain marie wrapped in airtight plastic, dripping with condensation – some off-putting new piece of festival food technology), I chilled out in front of TV on the Radio. The band performed well, but the sound from where I was stationed – slightly to the right of the stage – was shocking. It was as if the wind was carrying the music from side to side, rather than front to back. Quite annoying.

I arrived back in the boiler room in time to catch the tail end of Lupe Fiasco, who was incredible. Watching the athletic Chicagoan rapper spit out ‘Paris Tokyo’ and ‘Superstar’ in front of an enormous sounding backing band, I couldn’t help but regret not catching the full show.

My Morning Jacket proved to be an ideal act to kick back and enjoy a vodka slushy to in the afternoon sun, before it was time to head back to the boiler room for UK dance duo, Simian Mobile Disco. It felt a little odd gettin’ down to the grimy sounds of ‘Hustler’ and ‘It’s the Beat’ in the daylight, but it was a very enjoyable set that left no room for rest.

Feet still shuffling, and after a raft of rave reviews, the Silent Disco tent beckoned. For the uninitiated, Silent Disco involves whacking on a headset, choosing one of two music channels created live by DJs in the tent, and dancing like a fool in unison with around 50 per cent of the crowd – a surprisingly fun novelty, but one that words never seem to do justice. It is difficult to escape a feeling of guilt when you think about all the acts performing beyond the confines of the tent, though.

Outside, after seven hours of festivities, electropop quintet Hot Chip did a mighty good job of keeping energy levels aloft with the highlight performance of the day. God, it was good – the kind of live music you get lost in, with tunes you can’t get out of your head, and a steady dance beat you can’t resist. ‘Over and Over’ stood out as late crowd fave, which was topped off with a final cover of Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. Some arms were linked with their neighbours, others were swaying in the air, and others still were wielding lighters. Either way, though, the crowd was involved and loved it.

And then came Niel Young, a headline decision that was – lets face it – pretty strange. Admittedly, I’ve never been a big fan of Young. His is music I associate with parents and ‘hit music’ radio stations. It always felt distant.

That said, he put on a damn fine performance, and it was heartening watching pockets of over-50s clapping and jumping giddily to the opening chords of each new song. The claps and cheers, if somewhat diminished from earlier in the day, were built on genuine appreciation, rather than amped up excitement. And if Young was perturbed by a crowd that mostly probably hadn’t bought tickets to see him, he didn’t show it.

It’d be difficult to find a bigger contrast than the Neil Young/Prodigy back-to-back that the timetable threw at punters, and it killed the mood a little. It wasn’t that Young was too downbeat, or that the Prodigy was too extreme, it was just too sharp a change too quickly – like suddenly running out of hot water in the shower.

I didn’t actually stick around for the Prodigy for long, after 11 busy hours it was two much to find a fourth or fifth wind. The psychotic strobes became a slightly off-putting distraction rather than an energising tool, and with a fair portion of the group’s fans’ eyes popping out of their sockets with intense, drug-fuelled excitement, the boiler room was no longer a place for cheery dance fun. That’s not to say the Prodigy didn’t perform well; you couldn’t ask for a more energetic set, and when ‘Firestarter’ dropped the crowd went insane. But I was pooped from a very solid day.